


A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

by gigiree



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Bee Miraculous, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 15:28:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10767093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gigiree/pseuds/gigiree
Summary: Chloe isn't the best of them. She can look the part, but beyond that, her powers are still limited. So when an unflattering photo is posted on the Ladyblog, she seeks out Alya to help her rectify the situation.But there's so much more to be said than can be conveyed through a couple candid shots.





	A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Saving face is something Chloe’s has always prided herself on. She’s always strutted her way through life on gilded steps, silver spoon stuck firmly in her mouth as she steps over obstacles and often people.

But being a hero doesn’t give her much room to save face when her transparent wings are still new and stubbornly clinging against her yellow suit. She’s barely an asset on her good days and more a liability to the team on days when Pollen is being particularly stingy with her abilities.

The initial excitement of it all is waning in the face of her shame, as she is yet again, spirited away from a rampaging akuma in Volpina’s capable arms. She maintains what little gravitas she can, her chin lifted high and her gaze set forward as she shouts-

“Put me down you mangy fox! I can totally help Ladybug! Just give me a chance!”

The plea is a thing of repetition, something that rings in Volpina’s ears as a high pitched noise to be catalogued as an annoyance and nothing more.

Volpina is quiet and disconcertingly calm as she lands roughly on a dilapidated rooftop some kilometers away from the giant flower akuma lacing routes through the north end of Paris.

She unceremoniously dumps a still mumbling Bee on the old concrete, and doesn’t look back even as the Bee’s buzzing gets louder and her complaining reaches a pitch that is nearly painful to Volpina’s sensitive ears.

“Stay here. Keep a lookout for any civilians that need help.” The Fox merely chides, her golden eyes flickering back to her charge with a sharpness that stings Chloe less than Ladybug’s gentle reprimands had.

In the watery light of sunset, her flaring red curls look a lot like fire as she leaps away and Chloe can almost imagine them burning her with that same searing condescension that Volpina had looked at her with.

She shuts her eyes against the budding tears that threaten to come, and she bites her lips. Her wings give a little pathetic flutter, and then lie limply against her back no matter how much she wills them to move.

“I can help. Just…just give me a chance.” She whispers, digging her fingers into the gritty layer of dust and grime that coats the roof she sits on.

But her pride has been taking a heavy beating as of late. That same feeling of being unique,  
being special, had been slowly leached away by her inability to master her powers and her constant relegation to a civilian babysitter.

She looks the part. Her yellow suit is a pretty thing, clinging softly to her lithe form and the useless wings are actually very beautiful when they refract the sunlight. She knows she can cut quite the heroic figure, but she just can’t match up to first impressions.

Her magic is sporadic at best and she can only leap short distances. Her eyes are still adjusting to the many fractured views that the mask gives her and Pollen barely tolerates being in her presence.

She’d wanted to be a hero. To prove to Ladybug and Chat Noir, and to a lesser extent, Volpina, that she could actually be one of them.

She spends the rest of the incident collecting the potted flowers that were once Parisians onto her lonely little rooftop, just to make sure they’re not crushed by the time Ladybug brings everything back to normal.

–

Appearances are all she has in this moment. But there seems to a be a new anonymous contributor to the Ladyblog. A mystery photographer who seems to take pictures of the heroes full of clarity and motion.

They’re all candid shots, and while Chloe wonders vaguely how they’ve managed to get so close without any of them noticing, it’s one of the more recent posts that grabs her horrified attention.

It’s an unflattering photo of Queen Bee, caked in an unholy amount of green slime with her face contorted into a grimace. Her usually immaculate ponytail was scraggly and filthy, her bangs plastered to her forehead. Her eyes were so wide, that the whites around her irises could be seen. Her chin was tucked against her neck, so that her mouth stretched into a scream that brought her laugh lines into prominent view.

The caption reads: _Queen Bee caught by the Slimanator._

Simple. Non-judgemental. But it’s the comments below the photo that made her writhe in affronted anger.

_LADYNOIRFAN234: OMG THIS IS GREAT!_

_SEXYGRANDPA56: That feeling when you step on some dog crap._

_PERIDOTNACHO: DO I SENSE A NEW MEME BEING BORN?_

_TURTLEPOWER: Queen Bee has finally found her best ability. Generating memes. Maybe she can make the akuma laugh themselves to purification._

Her hands are shaking and her eyes are hurting again. Her feelings of inadequacy are drowning her again, roiling within her until she’s letting it all flow out against everyone she encounters today.

She doesn’t mean to. She’s genuinely been trying so hard to be a better person. Someone who could be considered hero material. But Pollen still refuses to trust her completely. Absolutely rebels against her whenever she summons the kwami into that golden hair comb.

She’s covered her room in fresh flowers. Has given up all her overly sweet perfumes because it had given her kwami as splitting headache.

Despite it all, she’s still not a hero capable of standing side by side with the likes of Ladybug.

Chloe has never been a crier. She’d long learned to fake tears well enough to get what she wanted, but she’d never let any sadness bully its way into her tear ducts.

So she gulps down the tears. Gives a particularly acerbic reply to Alya’s usual challenges and is rather snappy with Adrien in the morning. She reserves some of her meager patience for Sabrina’s concerned questions, but her phone sits heavy in her pocket with the knowledge that the post is probably getting thousands of hits within the hour.

She hears some laughter from around the lunchroom. She has to stop herself from thinking that they’re all laughing at her…and even if they were laughing at Queen Bee, so what? None of them knew her identity.

She can split her duality. Compartmentalize her feelings in one way or another.

Or so she tells herself. But the post is remarkably already at 800,000 hits by the time she’s safely ensconced in her room. There’s even a subthread dedicated to photoshopping Queen Bee into ridiculous situations, including stepping on the aforementioned dog crap.

“Screw this. I’ve had enough.” She bites out, and lets her anger flow into the comb, the magic of her transformation somehow feeling sharper than usual.

Probably Pollen making their displeasure known.

Still, she finds that her anger and wounded pride are enough to propel her out her window and into a city crested by a setting sun.

The waning light gives her little sight, but she merely uses the enhanced sensors at the ends of her black ribbon to guide her to where Alya Cesaire is.

She follows the trail of shimmering pheromones, something entirely too personal for her to feel comfortable sensing, but it’s how a bee would explore the world.

She finds the Ladyblog’s moderator ambling through a sparsely populated side street. Her green jacket is strangely pretty against the usual red of Alya’s hair, and her languid steps echo pleasantly in her ears.

(Chloe’s finding a new appreciation for the strangest things when cloaked as bee.)

She’s not quite sure how to approach the situation. But again, appearances are what Chloe excels in, and even if she’s not entirely of heroic caliber, she sort of looks the part.

Her wounded ego is still oblivious enough so that she can land squarely in front of Alya.  
Just big enough to let her place her hands on her hips, widen her stance and outright ask for what she wants.

Far from the earlier admiration Chloe has grown used to, Alya merely looks up from her phone entirely nonplussed, if not a little surprised.

“You want me to what again?” She asks, her eyes blinking owlishly from behind her thick glasses.

“I want you to take down the unflattering photo of me from the Ladyblog.”

There’s a strained silence. A funny little moment in which the two merely stare at each other. Alya breaks it by covering her mouth with one hand and chortling loudly.

“Oh…my god…you came all this way to ask me that?!”

Her shoulders are shaking. Her mirth is rippling through her until she calms herself enough to speak more clearly…until she notices that the Bee has taken up residence against a lamp post and is unabashedly arching her back, and posing with various angles.

“Look…I’m super photogenic. Just take a picture of me now, and replace the ugly one.” Queen Bee says as she places a delicate hand on chest. “If you want, I can even pose on top of that streetlight? Maybe looking out into the setting sun. A silhouette kind of thing?”

“Holy shit, I can’t breathe.” Alya laughs again, she’s bent over now, hands on knees.

Queen Bee promptly stops her posing, desperate to change the only thing that is within her power to maintain. She remembers the few lessons Ladybug has imparted to her. The moments of vulnerability and true frustration that had lead Chloe to believe that she’d had a lot of self reflection to do.

“I’m serious…please. Just give me a chance…this is the only thing I have…”

That brings Alya’s attention to full tilt. The words ring familiar, and this time, she lets her pity fully settle into her choice. She calms her laughter through a few breaths and takes a good long look at Queen Bee.

There’s something awfully pitiful about the hero under the golden pool of lamplight. The yellow of her suit is borderline garish, but with her golden head looking to the side in agitation. Her fists tense at her sides and her wings raised slightly, Queen Bee creates a unique tableau in this moment of openness.

The loud sound of a camera snapping a picture permeates the empty street. It’s just the two of them. Alya with her phone out and Chloe with surprise and betrayal written all over her face.

“I just got a good shot right now. Promise.” Alya tells her quietly with a smile that’s almost kind.

“I didn’t even get to pose…I really meant it when I said…whatever.” Bee speaks angrily, and then seems to fold into herself again. She crosses her arms , hugging herself. “Look. It’s not much, but I’ll buy you a really good coffee if you just take down that other picture.”

Alya doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she’s maneuvering quickly through her phone. Her fingers tapping busily against the screen as she hums in concentration.

A minute or two later, she is done.

“Okay. It’s off the blog.” Alya announces cheerfully, and she looks like she wants to say a bit more, but then she stops herself. She merely turns her phone towards Queen Bee and sure enough, the pictures from before are all there, save for the unflattering one.

And there’s a squeal of delight that’s quickly followed by a strangely warm hug. Alya’s sight if filled with sweet yellow and the faint scent of fresh flowers as Queen Bee reiterates her thanks over and over again.

When she pulls away, Alya feels oddly bereft and Queen Bee looks a little embarrassed to have had her relief overwhelm her so much. There’s something endearing about the whole thing…that someone with such a concern for her appearance would be made so happy with something as easy as taking down a bad picture.

(Or perhaps it’s because Alya has never interacted with Queen Bee in a strictly non-professional capacity. Perhaps it’s the vulnerability unfurling like the petals of a new bud that makes Queen Bee a bit silly and endearing here in this moment.)

And suddenly, Alya’s realizes it’s been a long day and she has yet to home and do homework. The sun has already set, only leaving behind the faintest of purple where the skyline met the horizon.

“So, about that coffee?” She reminds the slightly flighty Queen Bee, who promptly resumes her usual composure.

But her smile is still large and happy as she nods.

“I promised you really good coffee. You’ll get really good coffee.”  
—

For once, Chloe wishes all the attention weren’t on her.

But really, it hadn’t crossed her mind that parading into her favorite high end cafe clad in a bright yellow suit would cause such a ruckus.

There’s a few rippling giggles here and there, but Alya is trailing behind her a bit uncertainly. Foquet’s was ranked as the highest costing espresso in Paris, and Chloe is a lover of all things quality.  She’s a lot more sensitive now to the emotions of others. Things she hadn’t really thought about or couldn’t sense before she’d received her miraculous.

And maybe if she thinks long and hard about it, she can see how the immaculate table settings and rich crimson trappings of the cafe could give anyone pause.

“Gee…underdressed for coffee. That’s not something I’m used to.” Alya quips, but her tone is strained.

That gives Chloe enough motivation to raise her chin and order her usual espresso and Alya’s macchiato.

The young cashier keeps on gaping, and she doesn’t bother to hide the irritation in her tone as she pays him with cash to keep her identity safe. They wait for their orders with a tacit agreement to stick to small talk, but it doesn’t escape Alya’s notice that Queen Bee’s head keeps tilting in any direction where there’s laughter.

She compiles that information with the comments she’d seen under the unflattering photo, and with the heroine’s surprising openness.

Her pity turns into a painful awkward thing in her chest and it doesn’t stop once they’ve gotten their drinks and have settled into a slow stroll towards Alya’s home.

The evening is chilly for a spring night, and it’s a nice reprieve to have warm drinks in hand. But the conversation is stilted, with both girls having more to say beyond their initial agreements.

“8 euros for coffee…wow.” Alya whistles, tracing the embossed logo on the coffee cup. “it’s definitely good coffee”

Queen Bee merely laughs in response, occasionally shooting her companion curious glances.

“You don’t have to walk me home. It’s not that far, and I’m sure you’ve got your own life to get back to.”

“It’s on my way…besides, it’s what a hero should do.” Bee shrugs, suddenly finding the lid of her coffee cup very intriguing.

Alya stops abruptly, her shoes skidding roughly against the asphalt as she mulls over what she wants to say. Queen Bee stops with her, shoulder nearly bumping against Alya’s as she struggles to keep her coffee from toppling over.

She hisses in irritated surprise as some spills over anyway, more so from habit than from any actual pain. The suit protects her well.

“Hey wha-”

“Don’t listen to them. They’re idiots.” Alya cuts her off, her eyes quickly darting to look up at Queen Bee. They seem to cut through the steam rising from her cup. In the golden light of the streetlamp, her eyes look nearly golden and it cuts Chloe to the quick because they remind her of Volpina’s judging eyes for a moment.

But there’s a disconnect. Because the color is the same, but the emotions in them aren’t. Instead of judgement, there is sympathy. Instead of annoyance, there is understanding.

It’s too much genuine kindness for Chloe to swallow. She looks away again. But Alya is vehement.

“I mean it. You’re still new. You’re still learning and I can see that…you’re trying really hard. People will always find something. Just make sure that you don’t give them anything of substance to gossip about, Keep trying your best and work with your team.”

Chloe feels that same familiar stinging in her eyes, and the shivers that run all the way down to the tips of her wings. And somehow the stinging has turned to burning across her cheeks, embarrassment at having been caught so easily coloring her.

“I…thanks.” She says quietly. “I should…we should really get going.”

Alya doesn’t say much else. They reach her street in relative silence. Alya stands in front of her building’s entrance, and turns to say one last thing.

“Check out the Ladyblog tomorrow morning. I’ll post some really funny Volpina memes on there.”

Then she disappears inside with the polite little click of her door being shut.

The night is melancholy and cold, but Chloe feels so much warmer than before as she leaps against the night sky and follows the stars home.  
—

Chloe does check out the Ladyblog in the morning. And she giggles over breakfast at the Volpina memes she hadn’t noticed before…even a few about Ladybug and Chat Noir.

She scrolls down a bit more, and her stomach twists in dread as she searches the Bee tag.

Much to her surprise, there’s a candid shot of her from last night. The one Alya had taken. It’s not spectacular. It’s not her bounding across the city or her defeating an Akuma.

It’s simply her in golden lamplight, looking forlorn and emotional. But it’s a humanizing shot, and it’s somehow more flattering than any she’d imagined for herself.

And the caption is what surprises her the most.

Pictured here: Queen Bee in a rare moment of vulnerability. An important part of the heroic team, Queen Bee is frequently seen rescuing wayward civilians from the effects of the akuma.

She doesn’t bother to read the comments.

**Author's Note:**

> oh boy


End file.
